Buy it... if you regularly soak up John Barry's soothing and simplistically
melodic tones for drama in the last two decades of his career.

Avoid it... if you're either deterred by an extremely wet and wishy-washy
recording mix or are seeking any spark of life whatsoever from a veteran composer
lodged firmly in his comfort zone.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #450

WRITTEN
9/24/96, REVISED 8/25/08

BUY IT

Barry

Cry, The Beloved Country: (John Barry) The acclaimed Alan
Paton novel about the relationship between culturally different fathers in South
Africa who bond after their sons are both killed in the apartheid struggle has been
adapted onto the stage and screen several times. The largely unheralded 1995 film
version of Cry, The Beloved Country stars James Earl Jones as the black
minister and Richard Harris as the white father, and although the acting was well
received, the rest of the film was not. Considered too light of an adaptation, the
film was disregarded by some critics and audiences as being too easy on the
historic evils of apartheid. Lacking the kind of political punch necessary to
provide a compelling reason to seek its message, the remake is typically shelved
behind the more powerful 1951 Sidney Poitier rendition of the same story. Veteran
composer John Barry was no stranger to composing for the cultural ills of the
world, and especially for those set in Africa. At the height of the composer's
activities in the 1960's, sprinkled throughout his James Bond scores were a handful
of pieces that Barry had written specifically for African subject matter, a few of
which recognized for major awards. In the 1990's, Barry had remained a composer
best known for painting a soundscape to vast scenery and glorious colors. Thus,
based on qualifications alone, Cry, The Beloved Country seemed like a good
fit for the composer. The year of 1995 marked Barry's last year of major,
successful film score production, with health and legal problems plaguing the
composer during the years that followed. Unfortunately, Cry, The Beloved
Country turned out to be indicative (even more so than The Scarlet
Letter, which still showed signs of life in the composer) of the beginning of
Barry's stylistic decline. The score for Cry, The Beloved Country was
received very much like the film, criticized as a wishy-washy treatment of a
subject that should have been scored with a much sharper edge. Thus, once again,
the effectiveness of Barry's music in the film would have to be separated from the
listening experience on album. As such, it was an all-too-common occurrence for the
waning composer.

The difficulty with Barry's work for Cry, The Beloved
Country is that he approached the project with the same kind of romantic feel
of 1985's Out of Africa rather than the more appropriate ethnic tension and
spirit of 1964's Zulu. Granted, the films are obviously different in most
ways, but Cry, The Beloved Country is a relaxing, delicate score for a
troubled, disjointed film, raising immediate questions about the composer's
stylistic choices for the score (if any, if you want to be a cynic about Barry's
late career). The great irony of this entire situation, and bless Barry for doing
this, is the noted transfiguration of the original Zulu theme into Cry,
The Beloved Country. Whereas the theme was brutal (and meant for war) in
Zulu, it is translated into a beautiful, somber piano piece for travel
scenes in this score. The theme has the haunting feel of remembrance for Barry
personally as well, drawing from his own glory days and performing the theme as
almost a eulogy for his own declining career. Of great importance to the score,
however, are two additional themes for Cry, The Beloved Country, both of
which maintaining the high standards of string-performing excellence in harmony and
beauty that Barry fans expect to hear. His romantic and lush styles here are
slightly subdued, but always gracious in their presentation. Not much differs from
the height of passion to the horrors of death in his music, with the latter
receiving only a slight rhythm of rumbling timpani and single piano chords. The
themes are all extremely repetitive, almost to fault (once again the norm for
80's/90's Barry), but on album, the score is as delightful as it is sleep-inducing.
One of the consistencies between Cry, The Beloved Country and The Scarlet
Letter is the recording quality. Instead of compensating for Barry's very soft,
harmonious touch by emphasizing a crisp recording, the final mix is extremely wet
and reverberating. Thus, a wishy-washy score becomes even more abstract, which is
very effective if you want to relax to his music while seemingly sitting in the
back row of a concert hall. But Barry critics will have plenty to find displeasing
with Cry, The Beloved Country, from the echoing recording quality to the
repetitive nature of the writing, and not even the source songs on the album can
probably save the music for such listeners. Still, the score remains one of Barry's
last truly enjoyable efforts. ****@Amazon.com: CD or
Download

Bias Check:

For John Barry reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.85
(in 27 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.57
(in 26,643 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.